Montana Millionaire sales restart November 12, with extra instant prizes added to make up for the opening-day glitch

Montana Millionaire tickets go back on sale Thursday, November 12, at 6:30 a.m., the Montana Lottery said, 11 days after the opening-day glitch that shut the game down. The lottery says players will get "the same odds, the same drawings, and even more prizes.” 

Sales opened November 1 on a new system run by the vendor Bally's Intralot. It stalled where many players saw a "Transaction Not Allowed" message, and once it came back it handed out instant wins far too often. Of the 12,947 tickets sold that morning, 2,010 won $100 or $500 instantly, a total of $608,600, when the game's design called for about 175 wins in that many tickets. Lottery Director Bob Brown said the state and Intralot saw an unusually high volume of customers in those first hours.

The game still lists 720,000 tickets at $20, with instant prizes of $500 at 1 in 266.67 and $100 at 1 in 102.86. Those odds would have fallen for everyone buying after November 1, since Sunday's run used up roughly a fifth of the planned instant wins. Adding prizes back keeps them where they were advertised. If the add-back matches Sunday's count, the game will pay out about 11,710 instant prizes totaling about $2.66 million, against the 9,700 totaling $2.05 million it was designed with. Counting the $1 million grand prizes and the $250,000 drawing, that would bring the game's total prize payout to about 61.9% of a full sellout, up from 57.6%.

Sources

Montana Lottery: Montana Millionaire

KTVH: Montana Millionaire game to resume after temporary shutdown

Montana Right Now: Lottery says vendor will pay over $600k following Montana Millionaire issues